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2023.04.27 removing 94 from water tower:




The city of Cedar Falls repaints their water towers regularly, so we have to get our gear off the tower so
they can sand blast and repaint it. This time however we're not returning. We'll be removing the gear,
giving it a good check and tune-up, and it will be headed to the CFU main power plant building to be installed
there instead.

Normally I'd be doing the tower work, but this time Dwayne (N0XUT) will be giving it a go. We need to get
more people experienced with climbing, and Dwayne's also a bit younger which should help. I'll still be
bringing most of the climbing gear and offering my advice, but I'm leaving it up to him to figure out how
to accomplish the work.

The initial plan:
- climb up the tower, unfastening coax/hardline as he goes, leaving the last few connectors in place at the top
- remove main antenna from mast and lower it
- dismount mast from ladder and lower it
- dismount auxiliary antenna from fill pipe and lower it
- secure, fully disconnect, and lower the hardline and coax

We didn't remember to disconnect the coax on the way up, so Dwayne had to do a bit more up-and-down the
ladder, but it went pretty smoothly otherwise. Tower work almost always required some improvisation, and
Dwayne did a great job of turning plans into reality and getting the job done. We arrived at 9:30, planning
to hit the tower at 10 and be dome in a few hours. That turned out to be pretty optimistic, and I think we
wrapped up around 5:00 pm.

I didn't have time to take any actual pictures with my Spark, but I did copy out some highlights from the
video I took on the brief flight.

I was hoping to catch hin laying down on the catwalk, recovering his strength in preparation for the last
of the work and the climb down, but as it turns out he was ready for me, and seemed to get a kick out of
the drone coming up to greet him.


pictures taken

videos taken



last updated 12/09/2023 at 12:49:24 by make_www_index.command version 2023.12.08.B